On the day Madame Bénard took Madame de Précy through the château, she went first to a large room on the third story, and, as she pushed open the door, said: "I want to begin by showing you everything connected with Monsieur's childhood. This is the room where Monsieur played and amused himself when he was a little boy." Then she opened closets where lay balls, drums, trumpets, boxes of tin soldiers, games of patience, checkers, and dominoes, saying as one after another she fingered them: "These were Monsieur's playthings when he was a little boy." And suddenly she pulled from a heap a doll with a broken nose. "See, Madame! he even had a doll, that boy; he called her Pochette, and when he kissed her he used to say: 'She shall be my wife!' Was it not ludicrous? Well, he would not say that now. He has something better." Madame de Précy did not reply. The housekeeper questioned: "It must agitate you to see all these things?"--"Yes, Madame Bénard." Then the old lady took her to see the room where Monsieur used to sleep; sometimes forgetting herself, instead of Monsieur, she said Louis; and Madame de Précy was strangely moved at hearing pronounced by another that name she had so often called, but might never say again. The room where her husband used to study was next exhibited, with its shelves still filled by his old school-books and copy-books. One of the latter was seized by Madame Bénard, who, tendering it to Madame de Précy, cried: "See how well Monsieur wrote when he was a little boy." And traced in large, uncertain letters she read: "Let us love one another." Then she exclaimed: "I should like to go out into the air; I do not feel quite well." They went out of doors, and for some moments silently walked about. When a large pond, on which floated two beautiful white swans, was presently approached, Madame Bénard announced: "Here is the pond where Monsieur kept his boat when he was a little boy. One evening he came near drowning himself. I shall never forget that." When, a few steps farther on, they reached an old straight-backed, moss-grown wooden bench, on either side of which stood a tall earthenware vase, she cried: "This is the bench where Monsieur used to sit and read when he was a little boy." Next they entered the vegetable garden, and Madame Bénard, walking at once toward a little plot, enclosed by a hedge of box, said again: "This was Monsieur's garden when he was a little boy." As they afterward crossed the servants' court, a glimpse of the farm horses in their stalls, afforded by widely opened stable doors, caused Madame Bénard to exclaim: "Oh, Boniface used to be kept there!" "What was Boniface?" asked Madame de Précy. "Boniface was Monsieur's pony when he was a little boy." So clearly had Madame Bénard brought before Madame de Précy a little Louis who studied, read, wrote, laughed, and played that she almost saw him now, in short trousers with sunburnt legs and bare head, running across the garden.